2004 Aggie Football Season Preview
Welcome to TAMABINPO's 2004 Aggie Football Preview Part 1
Welcome to TAMABINPO's 2004 Aggie Football Preview. For those of you who are first time visitors, you can check out My Bio and the Archives to see what you've been missing....and for those of you who are part of my loyal readers....thanks for your continual support.
If you didn't pick it up from the name of the website, baseball is one of my main focuses but really anything Aggie related flies here (namely sports).
Prior to my first semester here at A&M I had seen a total of 2 Aggie football games (the '99 t.u. game and then the '99 Alamo Bowl v. Penn State). I really didn't follow college football until that point but I feel as if I've learned quite a bit about it in my first 4 years here at A&M....so much in fact that I'm sticking around for a victory lap and another football season.
I haven't missed a home game since I started school here (plus a road trip to Nebraska) and I saw every road game last season thanks to the old television. I do need to warn you that while I have become obsessed with the college game, I don't know a whole bunch about the finer points of football so if nothing else I'll be giving you my best analysis from one Aggie fan's stand point. In other words, I am not a professional scout or a team reporter but I, like thousands of other Aggies, live and die with Aggie football each and every Saturday (and in some cases Thursday nights).
Most of you know that last season there was a lot more dying than there was living. A 4-8 record (2-6 in Big XII) will do that to ya. Something that a lot of people seem to overlook is the fact that we had an incredibly difficult schedule last season. In fact, it was so difficult that it was ranked the 4th most difficult in all of DI football according to the NCAA (link). That leads me to believe that we've been a bit harsh on ourselves.
This season we don't have a cakewalk schedule by any means, but it does seem to be a bit less harsh than last season....Plus we get to play 3 of our 4 biggest games at Kyle Field (and we don't have to travel to tech, who seem to have our number in Lubbock).
Both Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso (of ESPN College Gameday) have us picked as their sleeper picks in the Big XII.
2004 Fightin' Texas Aggie Schedule
Date Opponent Time TV
09/02 @ Utah (19) 6:30pm ESPN
09/11 Wyoming 2:30pm FSN
09/18 Clemson (16) 6:00pm TBS
10/02 Kansas St. (12) TBA TBA
10/09 @ Iowa St. TBA TBA
10/16 @ Oklahoma St. TBA TBA
10/23 Colorado TBA TBA
10/30 @ Baylor TBA TBA
11/06 Oklahoma (2) TBA TBA
11/13 texas tech TBA TBA
11/26 @ texas (8) 2:30pm ABCOffense
Those are last season's stats and as you can tell, we just couldn't put points up on the board which is rough especially considering how many points our defense gave up.2003 OFFENSIVE STATISTICS TA
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SCORING....................... 304
Points Per Game............. 25.3 (70)
RUSHING YARDAGE............... 2127
Average Per Game............ 177.2 (36)
TDs Rushing................. 22
PASSING YARDAGE............... 2551
Att-Comp-Int................ 330-178-13
Average Per Game............ 212.6 (66)
TDs Passing................. 12
TOTAL OFFENSE................. 4678
Average Per Game............ 389.8 (48)
FUMBLES-LOST.................. 30-17
TIME OF POSSESSION/GAME....... 28:16
3RD-DOWN CONVERSIONS.......... 54/160
3rd-Down Pct................ 34%
4TH-DOWN CONVERSIONS.......... 7/18
4th-Down Pct................ 39%
note: () indicate national ranking out of 117 teams
SCORE BY QUARTERS 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Total
-------------------- --- --- --- --- ---
Texas A&M........... 37 102 67 98 - 304
Passing
Dustin Long has a nice2003 Results
PASSING GP Effic Att-Cmp-Int Pct Yds TD Lng Avg/G
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McNeal, Reggie 12 124.47 221-113-7 51.1 1782 8 91 148.5Long, Dustin 12 119.00 104-63-6 60.6 709 4 42 59.1
Branyon, Ty 1 108.80 2-1-0 50.0 14 0 14 14.0
Team 9 0.00 2-0-0 0.0 0 0 0 0.0
Carter, Jason 11 486.40 1-1-0 100.0 46 0 46 4.2
Total.......... 12 123.00 330-178-13 53.9 2551 12 91 212.6strike through his namebecause he's not with us anymore. I wish him the best of luck at Sam Houston as he steps into their program to finish up his collegiate career.Aggie fans across the nation hope that Reggie McNeal finally becomes the complete package that he was advertised as when he came to A&M as one of our greatest recruits ever. Thus far in his career he has been extremely inconsistent, with the high being his freshman season upset over #1 Oklahoma. This past January 9th, Reggie underwent shoulder surgery on throwing arm to repair some torn cartilage. He has been cleared to play and he is said to be 100% going into Thursday but it's definitely something to keep an eye on as the season gets under way.
I've always thought that Reggie has tremendous potential but he hasn't put it all together after his first 2 seasons. He has had a tendency in the past to throw behind receivers or even hit them in the back of the helmet, so hopefully during his injury down time he's been able to work on his timing and reading the defense. Coach Fran has said good things about his progress mentally, but I can't imagine a coach saying the opposite about his starting QB.
On the other hand, Reggie is definitely one of our guys that I would classify as a "playmaker". I think that in order for us to win we have our playmakers get as many touches with the football as possible because anything can happen when they're involved (I'll identify the rest of them as we go on)
Looking over the rest of our QB options....Branyon doesn't have too much experience (as in 2 passing attempts) and the other 3 QBs on the depth chart are true freshman, Stephen McGee and Jordan Chambless (who is a big baseball recruit) and red-shirt freshman T.J. Sanders.
Receiving
I think that our receiving corps has the potential to be very good.
RECEIVING GP No. Yds Avg TD Long Avg/G
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Murphy, Terren. 12 44 762 17.3 0 56 63.5Van Zant, Tim 12 30 367 12.2 3 37 30.6Taylor, Jamaar 6 25 456 18.2 4 91 76.0
Carter, Jason 11 12 162 13.5 0 27 14.7
Lewis, Courtney 12 10 91 9.1 0 33 7.6
Riley, Tydrick 12 9 147 16.3 1 37 12.2
Joseph, Keith 12 9 116 12.9 0 34 9.7
Taylor, Earvin 12 9 106 11.8 0 46 8.8
Schroeder, Chad 8 8 141 17.6 1 42 17.6
Thomas, Terren. 11 7 91 13.0 0 26 8.3Farmer, Derek 12 5 34 6.8 0 12 2.8
Matakis, Andy 10 4 40 10.0 2 16 4.0Wright, Anthony 11 3 19 6.3 0 9 1.7
Germany, Quin. 12 3 19 6.3 1 12 1.6
Total.......... 12 178 2551 14.3 12 91 212.6graduated or transferred outLet's start off with my favorite player, Terrence Murphy (T-Murph to TAMABINPO regulars). He already owns the school record for career receiving yards and is 2 receptions away from solely owning the school's career receptions record....and he's still got his entire senior season ahead of him. He is one of our "playmakers". Enough said.
Our other WRs are mainly unproven. The two seniors, Jason Carter and Terrence Thomas are the most experienced but still haven't been big contributors yet. Thomas has had 5 career starts and has a total of 32 career receptions for 356 yards and 2 TDs.
Carter is somewhat of a different story.
He came to A&M as a big QB recruit but got caught in a numbers game at that position. Last year he was poised for a monster season after having the A-Back position added to the offense for him, but he didn't get many touches once the season actually started. In fact he only had 7 carries (128 yards or 18.3 yards-per-carry) and had 12 receptions for a total of 162 yards (or 13.5 yards-per-catch).
I've always considered Jason one of our "playmakers" and I feel that if we can get him into the mix offensively more often we can expect big things out of him.
The rest of the receivers include Juco transfer, DeQawn Mobley, Earvin Taylor (SO.), L'Tydrick Riley (Jr.), Chad Schroeder (SO.), and Jesse Woods (Jr.). Those guys have a combined total of 27 receptions for 399 yards and 3 TDs.
Special Teams
This was a weak spot and a bright spot for the Aggies in 2003 depending on what aspect you were looking at.Our kick returning was spectacular, led by my boy T-Murph finishing the season averaging 27.2 yards-per-return. He was named the All-Big XII Kick Returner and he is a pre-season All-American at the position this year.2003 STATISTICS TA OPP
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KICK RETURNS: #-YARDS......... 41-980 47-1012
PUNT RETURNS: #-YARDS......... 34-195 25-123
KICK RETURN AVERAGE........... 23.9 (10) 21.5
PUNT RETURN AVERAGE........... 5.7 (110) 4.9
PUNTS-YARDS................... 58-2152 57-2411
Average Per Punt............ 37.1 42.3
Net punt average............ 35.0 (68) 38.9
FIELD GOALS-ATTEMPTS.......... 17-22 7-11Hopefully he won't have the opportunity to break his own school record for the number of kickoff returns in a season because our defense shouldn't be giving up as many TDs this year.
T-Murph will be joined by DeQwan Mobley on kick-offs but I wouldn't be surprised to see Jason Carter back there at some point during the season.
While our kick returning was spectacular our punt returning flat out STUNK. We finished 110th in the nation in punt return average (out of 117 teams) and I can't even begin to count how many times we fumbled the ball on punts. I suppose I can begin to count and I'm thinking somewhere around 8 or 9 times with us recovering the fumble about 3 or 4 of those times. It was a killer and it got to the point where I was simply hoping for just clean catch and no return.
T-Murph has been granted the punt return job after not taking any last season with Japhus Brown (RS-F) and Erik Mayes (RS-F) listed under him on the depth chart. I wouldn't be shocked if you see Jason Carter taking one every now-and-then either if there is any inconsistency with the others.
Todd Pegram will be our kicker again this year after having a solid season in his Sophomore season (last year). He hit 17-of-22 (77.3%) after a very rough freshman season (12-of-21; 57%). He is excellent inside the 30 yard marker but doesn't seem able to hit the long shots (season long was 42 yds last year). It is interesting to note that while his FG% rose dramatically last year it might have been because he was used from deep much more often in 2002. Only 12 of his 21 FGAs were from inside the 40 yard line (and he was 75% inside the 40-yd line).
TAMABINPO's 2004 Aggie Football Preview Part 2
Alright, we're back for the rest of the preview....our rushing game and my thoughts on the 2004 Wrecking Crew.
Yesterday we discussed the passing, receiving and special teams of our team and discovered that there is some definite hope but still a couple of unproven or unfulfilled potentials that will be big factors in our game.
Here's what you came for....
Rushing
We lost Derek Farmer this off-season when he followed Dustin Long to Sam Houston and the other guys scratched out graduated and Blake Kendrick is one of our linebackers who took some rushes during the Baylor blowout when he was our 12th man.RUSHING GP Att Gain Loss Net Avg TD Long Avg/G
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Lewis, Courtney 12 186 1070 46 1024 5.5 12 86 85.3
McNeal, Reggie 12 127 606 236 370 2.9 4 33 30.8Farmer, Derek 12 82 355 15 340 4.1 2 62 28.3
Murphy, Terren. 12 10 164 14 150 15.0 1 80 12.5
Carter, Jason 11 7 128 0 128 18.3 1 40 11.6Flemming, Osch. 11 15 75 3 72 4.8 0 15 6.5
Joseph, Keith 12 21 64 0 64 3.0 2 9 5.3Scates, Cody 4 1 15 0 15 15.0 0 15 3.8Taylor, Jamaar 6 2 13 0 13 6.5 0 11 2.2Kendrick, Blake 12 1 3 0 3 3.0 0 3 0.2Perry, Thomas 7 1 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 0.0
Team 9 5 0 18 -18 -3.6 0 0 -2.0Long, Dustin 12 21 53 87 -34 -1.6 0 18 -2.8
Total.......... 12 479 2546 419 2127 4.4 22 86 177.2[edit: Farmer went to Stephen F. Austin not Sam Houston]
The reason we lost Derek Farmer, who was a good tailback for us, is because Courtney Lewis had a Freshman All-American season.
C-Lew had 5 separate 100-yd rushing games and led the team in TDs scored with 12.
Unfortunately, losing Farmer really hurts our depth at the tailback position....mainly because last week we found out that our red-shirt freshman Derek Brown went ahead and enrolled this semester at a Junior college. Coach Fran explained the reason pretty ambiguously...."He’s going to take some time to get everything in line, academics and his life, and things like that."
Due to the loss of Mr. Brown our backup RB is listed as Will Adams on the depth chart. Will was a squads man last season and doesn't have any sort of statistics for me to show you. I've read elsewhere that we might move red-shirt freshman Chris Alexander (who I've heard great things about as a full back) a step further back in the formation if need be.
Fullback is manned by Keith "Chief" Joseph. Chief didn't get too many carries last year but man he's a beast. The guy is one of those huge guys that just look like a football player....and if the video game NCAA Football 2005 is any indicator, Chief is going to be a total stud on the field.
Now I'm going to mention the O-Line, even though it does affect the passing game and I've already spoken on that.
We have several linemen returning from last season including one, Jami Hightower, who red shirted due to a foot injury last year. The rest of the returnees are Geoff Hangartner, Aldo de la Garza (the Texas A&M bench press record holder at 490 lbs), and one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet...Dominique Streamer. The coaching staff says that the linemen are all stronger and faster than they were in 2003 after spending a tremendous amount of time focusing on those aspects of their game during the off-season.
Defense
We were very poor defensively last year as you can see. Only 2 teams in the nation gave up more points per game than we did and only 5 teams were worse against the run.....and 96th in total defense isn't too good either.2003 STATISTICS OPP
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SCORING....................... 465
Points Per Game............. 38.8 (115)
RUSHING YARDAGE............... 2701
Average Per Game............ 225.1 (112)
TDs Rushing................. 31
PASSING YARDAGE............... 2477
Att-Comp-Int................ 311-192-6
Average Per Game............ 206.4 (40)
TDs Passing................. 29
TOTAL OFFENSE................. 5178
Average Per Game............ 431.5 (96)
KICK RETURNS: #-YARDS......... 47-1012
PUNT RETURNS: #-YARDS......... 25-123
KICK RETURN AVERAGE........... 21.5
PUNT RETURN AVERAGE........... 4.9
FUMBLES-LOST.................. 35-13
PUNTS-YARDS................... 57-2411
Average Per Punt............ 42.3
Net punt average............ 38.9
TIME OF POSSESSION/GAME....... 31:44
3RD-DOWN CONVERSIONS.......... 75/169
3rd-Down Pct................ 44%
4TH-DOWN CONVERSIONS.......... 15/21
4th-Down Pct................ 71%
SACKS BY-YARDS................ 32-221
FIELD GOALS-ATTEMPTS.......... 7-11
TURNOVER MARGIN............... -.92 (105)
note: () indicates national ranking
SCORE BY QUARTERS 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Total
-------------------- --- --- --- --- ---
Opponents........... 121 92 145 107 - 465There was all sorts of talk about whether the defense should even be called the Wrecking Crew, and regardless of what you think about the name they definitely didn't look like the Wrecking Crews of the past.
I read somewhere that at some point in time last year we had 4 walk-ons in our 8 linebacker rotation. That was obviously one of areas of focus this off-season and we went after a couple of Juco players to fill the gaps (Aaron Brown, Lee Foliaki, and Renuel Greene) until all of our young sophomores and red-shirted freshmen become full out starters.
We lost one of those youngsters this off-season when sophomore-to-be TaTa Thompson walked away from football and school for personal reasons. TaTa not only had a cool name to say, but this guy was almost a full helmet taller than anyone else on the field.
One of the young guys that I think will end up being an extremely good LBer is Justin Warren.
I don't really know what it is about him but I just have a good feeling about him.
From what I've read we've moved former safety, Keelan Jackson into the LB rotation to increase the speed we seemed to lack there last year. Keelan had great games in the '02 v. OU and texas tech but had some injury troubles to overcome last season.
On the D-Line we've got some youth, but they're very highly touted. Red-shirt freshmen Jason Jack (DE) and Red Bryant (NT) are two of the big recruits from 2 years ago and they've earned the starting spots on the line over our 2003 incumbents during their red-shirt season and this off-season. Sparkplug Mike Montgomery has taken a starting spot over at the other DE position and our best tackling lineman from 2003, Johnny Jolly, will start in the DT position.
I don't think you can start looking at our cornerbacks and safeties without mentioning Jaxson Appel first. Jaxson, only a sophomore at the time, led the team in tackles last year....AS A DEFENSIVE BACK. He also had four of our defense's 6 interceptions on the season. He is a Pre-season All Big XII player and should be the heart and soul of our defense, just as he was last year.
I'm not sure where I read it, but Jaxson said something about the entire defense that I liked to hear. He said that everyone called them slow last year (I was definitely one of those accusers) but it wasn't necessarily speed, but slight hesitations made by the players because of the new defensive schemes after moving away from the 3-4 D that R.C. ran. I sure hope this is the case!
Elsewhere we've got Byron Jones (Sr.), Jonte Buhl, Ronald Jones (Jr.) and Melvin Bullitt (So.), and Erik Mayes (RS-F) slated as our starters.
I need to take this time to re-mention an old friend of mine, Evan Carthey. E walked onto the squad in the spring of our junior year after not playing a snap since his senior year of HS and made the practice squad last season. He was able to dress for several of the home games which was awesome.
Well Evan has now cracked into the depth chart listed as a right cornerback. Evan and I go waaaay back to 1st grade and have played everything from soccer to baseball to basketball together. Keep your eyes out for #5 on defense or on kick-offs and give him a nice big WHOOP! if you see him get into the action.
Team MVPs
When I looked back at my pre-season team MVPs the other day, I was shocked to read what I had written.
I was a "barely" away from nailing the MVPs that were voted on by the team after the season. That's not too bad.On Offense, I'm going with Jason Carter, but barely over T-Murph. On D-fense, I'm sticking with Jaxson Appel.This year I'm going to go with my boy, T-Murph, simply because he's awesome and he's my favorite. On defense I would say Jaxson Appel again, but I don't think he's going to have the numbers that he did last year because he's going to get some help from a few other guys this year. I'm going to go out on a limb and buy into the hype of the red-shirt freshmen on the D-Line. I'll say Jason Jack. I don't really know why, but I just have a great feeling about this guy.
Coach Fran's Year 2 Factor
I found this on AggieAthletics.com and I thought it might interest you as much as it did me....
Franchione's First Two SeasonsLet's hope that this trend continues here in Aggieland!
School Yr 1 Yr 2 +/-
Southwestern (Kan.) College 5-5-2 9-2 +4
Pittsburgh (Kan.) State 8-2 11-1 +3
Texas State 6-5 7-4 +1
New Mexico 3-8 6-5 +3
TCU 7-5 8-4 +1
Alabama 7-5 10-3 +3
Average Victory Improvement +2.5Here's to a great season and some big Ws at home in Kyle Field!
WHOOP!
posted by AgRyan04 at 10:54 PM
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